by Wren Weston
Blisters stinging, Lila’s ankle turned as she landed. She tripped. Rolled. Her head barely missed the row of heating units.
The guard’s footsteps stopped.
Lila didn’t wait. Ankle throbbing, she scrambled back to the ledge and threw her leg over it, letting herself dangle off the side with only the strength in her fingers holding her up.
The fire escape lay a meter to the right.
Lila had gravely misjudged her position.
“Fuck,” she mouthed, walking her hands toward the railing.
Lila slid along the roof until the rail was under her feet. She kept sight of Samantha, waiting until she passed under the fire escape and walked toward the end of the alley. Lila’s fingers cramped, and she began to sweat under her thick coat.
Waiting in Tristan’s room didn’t seem quite so funny anymore.
Once Samantha was out of earshot, Lila let herself drop to the handrail, then gently stepped down on to the fire escape, cringing when it squeaked softly under her weight.
Samantha did not turn around.
Lila breathed deeply and limped to the window, which opened into the fifth-floor hallway.
She tugged at the bottom.
The lock was still broken.
Lila ducked into the hallway on the top floor and slid her mesh hood over her face. Removing a set of lock-picking tools from her pocket, she knelt by Tristan’s door.
The door opened as soon as she touched the doorknob.
He’d left it unlocked, open to the world.
Sloppy. Tristan trusted his people far too much.
Lila slipped through the door, confused to find Dixon at the window. He peeked through a slit in the drapes, staring out over the front of the mechanic shop. Scars crossed his back as though a thin bicycle wheel had been dipped in silver ink and raked across it, backing over him again and again, scoring his body with thick furrows. She’d seen them before, wondered about them, but she could never bring herself to ask.
They never got any easier to see.
This was the back she’d wanted to explore earlier in the day, connected to a man she barely knew, with a past she’d never uncovered. She had asked Tristan about him, of course, in between sips of wine on the Victory Tower.
“All you need to know about Dixon can be summed up by one sentence,” he’d replied, bitterness clouding his mirth. “Dixon Leclair has the most beautiful voice in the world.”
She’d looked up, startled and confused.
“He and I grew up together, you know. Whenever Dixon sang, everyone around him stopped. The notes held you like a spell. The notes made you stupid. They made you forget the bad and cling to the good, or they made you forget the good and cling to the bad. He played all who listened, depending on the song, and people followed him for it. He didn’t need the notes, though. He could make you believe you could fly with just a few well-chosen words.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Few do. I’d give my right hand if I could hear him sing again. He doesn’t need a tongue for it, but he won’t, not since they hurt him. He won’t even hum. Assholes knew exactly what they were doing.”
Tristan wouldn’t say more about it, not that night or any night after.
Lila took off her hood. Dixon turned, cocking his head in confusion, a puzzled little smile on his face.
“Sorry. I didn’t know you were here.”
Dixon’s bare feet slapped across the wood floor as he crossed the room, sandwich perched lazily in his hand. Cheetah-print boxer briefs clung to his swimmer’s body.
Lila gulped and tried not to look down.
Dixon took a big bite of his sandwich and stared at her expectantly, sticking his finger in his mouth to move the food under his teeth.
“Avocado and bananas with hot sauce?” she asked, sniffing the air.
Dixon nodded.
“Really? Is it good?”
He grinned and nodded again, pointing at his throat. He had explained once that he could only taste food in his throat and on the little tip of his tongue he had left. He favored strange food combinations, but Tristan had told her once that he’d always been a bit odd about food. That time it had been cream cheese, raisins, pickles, and tuna.
She pointed to his boxer briefs. “They were a gift?”
Dixon shook his head and snapped the waistband. Lila looked down at exactly the wrong moment for a peek.
Or the right one.
Oracle’s light, she was hungry.
Dixon winked.
“Sometimes I just don’t know about you.” She unwound her scarf. It was hot in the room, for the heater had been turned on full blast, rattling between the couches. “May I wait here for Tristan to get back from whatever stupidity he’s up to right now? We could talk or something.”
Lila could think of several things she’d rather do than talk. She wondered if he’d be up for any of them.
Dixon licked his fingers and picked up a pillow from one of the couches, then launched it at Tristan’s closed bedroom door. It landed with a dull thump.
The door opened in a rush. “Damn it, Dixon, what—”
Tristan turned his head, realizing too late that Lila was in the room. He looked down at his black boxer briefs, the only stitch of clothing he wore, revealing a form very much like Dixon’s without the scars. “Didn’t hear you come in,” he grumbled, and slammed the door shut again.
A moment later, he emerged in a pair of black cargo pants and a gray t-shirt. “Turn the damn heater down, Dixon. I’m roasting.”
Dixon shook his head.
“Ass,” Tristan spat, turning off the heater himself. His gaze tracked to Lila. “What are you doing here?”
Dixon scribbled furiously on his notepad. Seconds later he held it up.
SHE COULDN’T RESIST ME. OUR KISS WAS EPIC.
Lila bit her lip and tried not to laugh. “If you’d bother to check your messages, Tristan, you might know. I’ve been trying to call you for the last few hours.”
Dixon flashed his notepad. He did.
“So he’s been ignoring my calls?”
Dixon nodded, almost laughing.
“Go put some clothes on,” Tristan grumbled. “You’re making the chief uncomfortable.”
Dixon raised a brow and fell back into the couch. He kicked his feet on an ottoman and took another lazy bite of his sandwich.
Lila tried not to peek again. And failed. “Look, I don’t care why you ignored my calls tonight. You asked for my help, and I have new information. If you’ve changed your—”
“What new information?”
“Stuff.”
“Well, that’s really specific, Lila. Next time don’t bother explaining yourself so thoroughly.” When she didn’t answer him, he rolled his eyes. “I’ve already updated Dixon on our progress. You can speak freely. I tell him everything anyway.”
Lila pushed her shoulders back and gave a curt nod. “Fine. I need lookouts. I’m hacking Liberté tonight.”
Tristan cocked his head to the side. “Wait a minute, you want to break into the same bank that you said you’d be a fool to hack into this morning? What information could possibly have made you change your mind?”
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.”
Dixon whistled and held up his notebook. What’s the plan?
“I obviously can’t do it from my family’s estate. It might be traced back to me or my family. We’ll park outside the Wilson compound and use her network. Your people can serve as lookouts in case her militia patrols see us and decide to investigate. Their techs won’t even see me in the logs after I’m done. Even if they do, they’ll think it was one of their own. Let Mama Wilson sort that one out.”
“Have I told you how much I enjoy the way you think?”
“Yes, as a m
atter of fact, you told me this evening after you returned my messages,” she said. “One more thing. I’m not going to make any withdrawals. This isn’t a bank robbery.”
“I can steal my own money,” Tristan said, tugging on his coat.
Chapter 15
While Tristan and his people prepped for the op, Lila recovered her satchel and helmet from the roof of the apartment building. She limped up the stairs this time, rather than jumping across and risking further injury to her ankle. On the way back, she retrieved her Firefly and parked it in the back of the shop for safe keeping, then changed clothes and stopped by Toxic and Reaper’s storage room. She grabbed a sleek Apex for her work. The pair always kept several new, unused laptops on hand at all times, preparing for such situations.
She hopped into one of the Cruz trucks, uploading her snoop programs from her star drive while Tristan darted around the garage, giving last-minute orders. It always amazed her how quickly he could pull together such things, how easily he directed his people, how willing they were to follow his lead. She often wondered if she had no title and no birthright if her subordinates would react the same way.
Probably not.
“You ready?” he asked finally, opening the driver’s side door.
“Always,” she replied through her mesh hood, shutting Apex’s lid. “Were you able to get ahold of Reaper? It would make researching faster if we had an extra hand.”
Tristan shook his head. “He won’t be back for several days, and I can’t begrudge a man for wanting to earn an honest living. I certainly can’t afford to pay him what he’s worth, either. I called Toxic instead. She just needs the address, and she’ll meet us there.” He pulled the truck out of the shop carefully while a now-clothed Dixon signaled his way through the maze of motorcycles and parked cars.
Once Tristan had cleared the dock door, Dixon and four other figures hopped onto a few motorcycles, with two of the men doubling up. The woman in the green coat closed the door after them, and they zipped away from the shop.
“They’re going to be too loud on those things. This isn’t a parade, Tristan. We should go in fewer vehicles.”
“We’ll be fine. I have no intention of turning an alley into a parking lot.”
Lila thumbed the edge of her laptop as they drove in silence, their earlier fight remembered but ignored by strained agreement.
That was fine by Lila. She had no wish to start another.
As the streetlights rushed past, two of the bikes split off from the group and turned down a side street. Another turned at the next light.
Only Tristan and Lila remained.
“Where are the others going?” she asked.
“Patience. They’ll meet us on foot after we find a good place.”
“You’re counseling me about patience?”
Tristan ignored her and circled the Wilson compound while she gauged the strength of the chairwoman’s network on a spare palm. They settled on an abandoned restaurant named Chaucer’s Ghost, one of the many businesses around the estate to go bust after the family’s dividends had dwindled.
Plywood covered the windows and the windows of its neighbors. All had been painted white, though the blurs of darker colors shone through, far-off echoes of frustration and boredom drawn out in paint. The street had not been swept in months, and only one street lamp still functioned. It slumped over the road as though put upon and exhausted from its efforts.
Tristan pulled into the alley beside the restaurant, killed the engine, and messaged the group. “I didn’t see any patrols,” he said, tapping his palm computer against his leg when he had finished.
“They don’t have the manpower for it. I suspect the chief is too busy taking care of the mess inside. What do they have to steal, anyway?”
“The emperor?”
Lila snorted. The Kruger addition to the Wilson name was not due to birth. It was a bit of pomp that Norma Wilson, Alex’s grandmother, had styled for herself. Eighty years ago, a rebellious niece of the king of Germany had slipped into port with the intention of making a new life for herself in America. Up to that point, the women in the Holy Roman Empire were looked at as little more than breeding cows. They lacked the ability to vote, own property, or manage their own finances, if they were lucky enough to have money at all. Ilse Kruger refused to settle for such a life. After her husband’s death, she cleared out his bank account in Burgundy, escaped to Saxony, and eventually settled in New Bristol. A master of accents, she even managed to start a business with no one the wiser, and her irritated father had little reason to locate her.
After all, he didn’t know she was pregnant at the time.
Unfortunately, the secret didn’t last. The king died, and Ms. Kruger’s father took the throne, also claiming the abandoned title of emperor. As his only child, Ms. Kruger suddenly became very important. Or, more correctly, her children would become important. Her eldest son would one day become the rightful heir. The emperor dispatched men to find her and return her to Germany. So did his counterpart in Italy, though only to cause mischief, rather than to aid.
Alex’s grandmother managed to intercept one of the men. After slipping him truth serum, she sent her people to find Ms. Kruger, nearly bankrupting her family to take over the woman’s company. After it lay in ruins, the chairwoman bought the woman’s mark at auction, her identity unknown to those attending. Both Ms. Kruger and her young son became Wilson slaves.
The fallout nearly unsettled the ceasefire between the Holy Roman Empire and the Allied Lands. Fortunately, the king’s new wife bore a son, and Ms. Kruger and her heir didn’t seem worth the trouble any longer—not enough to rescue, anyway. His partner, the Italian king, dissuaded him from going after her because the diplomatic situation was too tense. There were other heirs, and his grandson had never lived in Germany.
What was a daughter but another cow?
What was Ilse Kruger but the most rebellious and troublesome cow of all?
It enraged Lila to think of it. The only thing stranger was the idea that men should handle everyone’s affairs. Certainly she had met many competent men in highborn society, but putting them solely in charge of anything, much less an entire country, seemed insane.
But that’s how it was in the Holy Roman Empire. Even now, there existed a few aristocratic traditionalists who thought Peter Kruger should be the rightful king and emperor rather than King Lucas, not that the Italians would ever go for it. Lila thought them all barking mad. She had met the man several times growing up, and he was a sad disappointment. He barely knew how to read, and barely spoke when Lila attempted conversation.
It wasn’t all that surprising. Lila and Alex had snuck peeks at her grandmother’s parties when they were young. The chairwoman liked to drag out the small man from whatever hole he had been set to work in that day, force him to dress up in child’s costumes, and serve her guests wine. Occasionally the woman offered no costume and no clothes at all.
That was before the Interclass Abuse Act, which, among its many provisions, forced slave owners to educate their slaves’ children and ended much of the humiliation the poor man suffered. Strangely enough, the rightful heir to their enemy’s throne had been the inspiration for much of it. Too many highborn had been disgusted by the chairwoman’s antics during parties. They had begun taking a longer look at their own actions in response.
It hadn’t ended every torment Peter Kruger faced. Like Alex’s grandmother, Chairwoman Wilson still assigned him to every unpleasant task she could devise, all in an effort to skate around the act. But at least Mr. Kruger’s children could read and did not endure the same humiliations, though they were little better off. They would not be allowed to age out at eighteen, like other children of slaves. As the children of a German citizen, the law still considered them an enemy.
Lila wasn’t sure what her own mother had planned for them after she took charge of the Wilson
property, but at least she had no interest in humiliation.
Neither did Lila.
They agreed on another thing as well. While Alex’s mother and grandmother had always believed Ms. Kruger’s capture was their greatest triumph, Lila saw it for what it was. An overextension. A wasteful expenditure of resources on a luxury item that offered absolutely no return on investment. It had sounded the death knell for the Wilson family. They had never recovered from the loss of capital.
Besides, it was just crass. What sort of behavior could one expect from a family who had only attained highborn status with Norma Wilson’s rise? If Alex had not shown more decorum, then she and Lila could never have become friends. Her mother would never have allowed it.
“Look alive, will you?” Tristan said, snapping his fingers in her face. “Here they come.”
Dixon showed up to the truck first. He opened the truck door and scooted in next to Lila, forcing her to squeeze closer to Tristan. They sat next to one another, not touching, not speaking. While Lila slipped on her hood, Dixon scribbled notes about what he’d seen around the neighborhood.
One patrol on the other side. They’re stopped with no lights. Eating. He drew a map beside his words.
“Well, they won’t be eating for much longer,” Tristan said as he directed the next two men to the roof of Chaucer’s Ghost. The other slipped inside the truck cab. The group squeezed closer together, and Tristan awkwardly put his arms around Lila for lack of anywhere else to put them. She smelled his soap, really nice soap, and a hint of whiskey.
Dixon raised an eyebrow.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lila saw Tristan’s chin jut out, and he pulled Lila even closer into his body.
Lila had somehow found herself in a tennis match between the two men, and she was the ball.
“Get off,” she muttered, pushing Tristan away. She climbed over Dixon and the other man in her haste to escape the truck, nearly kneeing them both in the crotch.